Depersonalization, bicameral thinking, and TOM

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How would you say your sense of self is? I don't mean confidence.

Your _self_. Do you think it's impaired?

I was reading something about the way the amagdyla may be affected in some autistic individuals, basically what they propse is that there is no sense of self, which leads to problems realting to tohers but not because the autistic is egocentric, which is a common belief. According to this, autistics lack the wiring to be egocentric at all, they make no clear distinction (mostly in very early childhood from what I gather) between themselves and other people.

Also explains speaking in the third person and impaired TOM(to some extent).

It's also said that most humans had bicameral minds until about 3,000 years ago, and that autistics and schizophrenics may have similar wiring , although I don't totally agree. The true bicameral mind that was discussed in the articles I read sounded more like that of a cave person's and I don't believe that people were thinking this way only 3,000 years ago, these people are basically described as being totally incapable of some pretty basic functions, "executive ego functions", critical thinking, and introspection.

But, they don't say that it's exactly the same thought process in this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)

But, I do relate to it as far as relating to the world as an object, and not a person.

This is also called depersonalization and has always been the case for me.

Wondering how many on the spectrum are this way.

Thoughts?

Yes, I feel "ego-less" most of the time. I think in verbal though unspoken thought in a myriad of associations with no subject lasting very long. My mindscape is either so intense I forget the world around me or so quiet I can absorb all stimuli at once directly into me. It's rarely in between and it is more often like my thoughts/imagination vying for my attention even though I want it on what's going on in reality.

As for theory of mind, I honestly cannot fathom why people do what they do and everything I do just doesn't seem right to them either. I have a strong hatred for injustice and inequality, and I believe this stems from having a relatively equanimous mindset. Everything is on an even playing field, which makes prioritizing and knowing when something is "good enough" very difficult for me. I may spend a ridiculous amount of time on a detail that everyone else (usually later) tells me is irrelevant. Group work is a soul-sucking, emotionally draining endeavor but I want to finish my degree in culinary arts and become a professional baker; so I have to deal with it!

I have to go but if I can answer any more of your questions I will; I'm pretty self-aware, or at least aware, since my "self" is an amalgamation of whatever desires, thoughts, feelings, experiences are going on at that time.

Oh my goodness, this is fascinating! I have long ruminated on my lack of self (or a very different sense than others seem to use/identify with).

This is part and parcel of why I find it difficult to identify with a specific gender, for example. I was born biologically female, who I am (brainwise) is who I am and it doesn't much matter to me what label is assigned to that. I would no sooner call myself male or female, and generic gender roles mean nothing to me. This is foreign and anathema to most people I've met.

So many times what has been described as "low self-esteem" has rung false to me. I'm just too different in how I claim or don't claim a "self", their label means nothing to me.

Ugh, I'm so bad with words, I hope this has made some sense. I'm so glad you've posted this!

P.S. I very much identify with what kirayng has posted above.

Same here. In fact, thinking I do not exist calms me. But we need to know what we are, were we are, etc. so we can handle ourselves. Sometimes I feel like I am in my body, but not making a strong link between my body and my spirit, even if I am totally convinced that I am not something else than my body activity.

It's more like I am a software in my brain, and some parts of my brain are not under my control. In fact I believe it is the most realistic point of view, because conscience is only a part of our mind. I would say normal people (maybe it is the same as NT) have the illusion to be a whole although they also have inconscious thoughts.

Hehe, same here, for all of it.

When I was younger, around 13 or 14 and much more quiet than I am now I remember being told I needed to work on my confidence and SELF esteem:I actually remember thinking "how can I work on something that doesn't exist?" But I thought I was a *total* headcase. I've only tried to explain this to about one person IRL and he was odd also, even some Aspie traits but didn't get it. I've never told people about "having no self".

I actually have met one very "normal" girl who has said things similar to this, says she feels like "everyone and everything".

So if at some point most people were wired this way it's probably lingering among us.

Last edited by EXPECIALLY on 02 Feb 2012, 12:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Do you have any other diagnosis? I'm really curious because wgat you say about feeling like software in your brain is how I feel.

I think i could be easily diagnosed with Depersonalization Disorder but I see no need for it, I feel OK, I've always felt this way and it's probably also part of ADHD.

Software...veryyyy interesting, I do feel like I switch "modes", I don't want to say personalities because that sounds insane but that's what it is to some extent, and these modes are like software programs that are installed on my OS, that could be replaced pretty easily.

Well I feel that conscience is like the debugger of the mind. I don't know if you've done programming before, so I'll explain what a debbuger is. It is a program that allows to manipulate other programs to see what is going on, what are the errors, what are the steps followed, etc. I feel that in fact my conscience is not a way of acting, but a way of seeing my mind.

When I want to do something, it's quite spontaneous. I may need to think on how to do it, but the energy flows naturally coming from a need or a curiosity. What I call "I" is the fact that I am managing theses flows of energy. The fact that it's more like a flow makes it different from a computer. Nevertheless, the metaphor of the debugger is still good.

Then I must tell you how I see reality and mind together. To a certain extent, everything we experience is our mind. For example, if you know there is an object near you, we call feel it even if we don't perceive it. So what we call reality is in fact a reconstruction in our mind made from information coming through the senses. This yields 3 things : the mind, the external reality (you can consider the body to be an external reality or not), and the relation between the two.

The mind, even if it is an activity of the brain, is not subjectively located in our head. We are in this subjective world.

To sum it up, the conscience and the "I" is like a software in the mind, the conscience being a sort of debugger, and our "I" can look at other programs going on in our mind, to have images, sounds etc. Some of these programs have an access to the outside world through senses. The fact that we are so near from it can give the illusion that we see directly through our eyes and hear directly through our ears, but this is not the case. Our vision and our sound perception has other inputs, for example imagination.

I understand what you say about switching personalities, but I don't think it is the case. We switch behaviors, patterns and pack of patterns that we believe fit the situation. The real you, your personality is what is under it. It's been here since a very long time and is not much changing.

I think this is an interesting notion. I've never thought of things being the way they are due to a diminished sense of self, but it makes some sense to me.

At the same time, though, I don't think I am totally missing a sense of self. But, it might help explain my extreme modesty among other things.

Interesting food for thought; it would be good to see more research and discussion on the topic, though.

In order to be highly social beings, people have to think a lot about themselves and other people. NTs have to think about themselves and other people and the relations amongst people, especially between themselves and other people, more than autistics do, in order to take part fully in the social group. They do this automatically for simple socials and have a large knowledgebase and instincts for complex socials that they also have to think about, like autistics have to think about for simple socials. Autistics relate more to the physical world, because most mental processing does not go through a social filter, and there is less of a barrier between the self and the physical world. I made these up, btw, so there is no evidence for anything.

Interesting. I've also never really understood what a "sense of self" is (beyond that you're supposed to have one and it's supposed to be bad not to).

Egocentricity does seem to require being able to differentiate yourself from others. So, if you don't differentiate yourself from others do you sort of expand and sort of become everyone and the whole universe? When I was a kid I would sometimes ask people questions about things that were in my mind, which they couldn't reasonably be exptected to understand without me drawing a diagram. But it didn't occur to me until a certain age that people couldn't automatically know or see what I was seeing in my mind. It's like my brain assumes that everyone is sort of inside my head in the same way that I am. And I've wondered if that's why greeting people and saying goodbye also doesn't come naturally.

Yep.

As far as you expecting people to know what you were thinking when you were young, this is common in autistic kids but they call it thought projection. Basically saying the autistic is projecting their thoughts onto you and not expecting you to have any of your won.

That really implies a very strong sense of self, where as this theory and IME expecting people to know what you do has more to do with feeling like you are a part of them V. them being a part of you...

When I was under 5 I did identify with objects, I really thought that I WAS them. But I had no speech delay and aside from horrible tantrums was otherwise NT.

And I still do to some extent, I think we take on the outer world..."the universe" and everything, and make it a prt of ourselves, where as it comes from within innately in NTs, I suppose.

So THEY are in fact the ones projecting thoughts.

I do not agree about not beeing egocentric because you don't feel any ego. I would say the basic definition of egocentrism is that you ignore other people in some way : what they do, what they think etc. I can be due to a sense of self but it's not the only possible reason.

An autistic person is not necessarily egocentric, it depends on how much importance he gives to his mind. For example, if you consider other people and other things as not separated from you, but if you take them into account, then, it's not egocentrism but something like fusion. But the fact is that other people have a subjectivity that is not directly visible, so if you ignore this, considering your mind is the whole thing is a form of egocentrism, even if you don't think about it as a self. Maybe we could use another term like "mindcentric", but it's felt the same way by some people. To avoid this, you can for example consider other people like mind holes or windows. You do not know what is in their mind, but you keep some space in your mind for this mystery. If there are n people around you, there are n mind windows. Of course, we may not understand what they say, what they want etc. but if you keep in mind that "window" for each person, it is cannot be considered by egocentrism by other people. We may be considered stupid by some people, but in this case, the error is in those people's mind, who consider themselves as an important topic. Note that "mindcentrism" can be in NT people, for example when they have a religion and they cannot consider that you do not think the same.

IKWYM.

I think most grown autistics have an ego to some extent...I don't know that you could be considered sane without one, I think the autistic children who are "egoless" grow up to develop one.

Otherwise, it's something very close to schizophrenia and when I've really lost touch with my ego I started to feel like I was losing my sanity. No hallucinations, but a marked loss of touch with reality.

Thing is, though, the professionals still it is as something closer to narcissism, not in all autistics, but many. I don't think a lot of NTs are comfortable with this gray area or the fact that you might be totally uniterested in them without being completely self-obsessed, they would rather that be the case.

I can turn this on and off to some extent...I go through phases where I lack TOM and if I REALLLLY wanted to I could improve it, but it can be very difficult and when I'm busy I have to dedicate all of my self to getting things done, so during these times I have been called an as*hole, dense, rude, even arrogant by some people.

I am basically the same person the rest of the time, my humor can still be snarky and offbeat but when I turn my "ego" on, people can probably sense that I'm actually listening to them and feel more appreciated, so they like me and consider me a lovable curmudgeon as opposed to an arrogant ahole.

TBH I'm usually equally comfortable with either analysis, if I made it my mission to appear the lovable curmudgeon 100% of the time I'd be very stressed out and I'd never get things done, if this slight change in interest i other's people's thoughts and feelings makes them consider me an ahole, I can't say I'm surprised but this shows you how much human relationships have to do with self-obsession.

So in fact, someone will tell you you are egocentric when you don't pay attention to their ego. Very confused I am.

Me thinks. Or they will project their own thoughts onto you.

I've noticed that I get all kinds of weird "assessments" from NTs about me, when I am lacking in TOM and social perception.

Like totally different descriptions from two different people that are absolutely nothing like "me", even though the "me" can sometimes be hard to define.

But it seems like the traits they see in people like this are very closely related to how they see you in comparison to themselves, they will try to ascribe certain things to you, either good or bad, but when you step outside of whatever box they've put you into they become confused or uncomfortable.

Well I find it sometimes difficult to get out of the box they say, but internally I really don't care if there are confused if I get out.

I think that they project much, yes, and they compare.

One thing that I hate is when they put things on you they consider to be negative, treating you like a social trash can.